Building C-program “out of source tree” with GNU make

Question

I would like to build a C-project for my microcontroller with the GNU make tool. I would like to do it in a clean way, such that my source code is not cluttered with object

Answer 1

Here's a basic one I use all the time, it's pretty much a skeleton as it is but works perfectly fine for simple projects. For more complex projects it certainly needs to be adapted, but I always use this one as a starting point.

APP=app

SRC_DIR=src
INC_DIR=inc
OBJ_DIR=obj
BIN_DIR=bin

CC=gcc
LD=gcc
CFLAGS=-O2 -c -Wall -pedantic -ansi
LFLGAS=
DFLAGS=-g3 -O0 -DDEBUG
INCFLAGS=-I$(INC_DIR)

SOURCES=$(wildcard $(SRC_DIR)/*.c)
HEADERS=$(wildcard $(INC_DIR)/*.h)
OBJECTS=$(SOURCES:$(SRC_DIR)/%.c=$(OBJ_DIR)/%.o)
DEPENDS=$(OBJ_DIR)/.depends


.PHONY: all
all: $(BIN_DIR)/$(APP)

.PHONY: debug
debug: CFLAGS+=$(DFLAGS)
debug: all


$(BIN_DIR)/$(APP): $(OBJECTS) | $(BIN_DIR)
    $(LD) $(LFLGAS) -o $@ $^

$(OBJ_DIR)/%.o: | $(OBJ_DIR)
    $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCFLAGS) -o $@ $<

$(DEPENDS): $(SOURCES) | $(OBJ_DIR)
    $(CC) $(INCFLAGS) -MM $(SOURCES) | sed -e 's!^!$(OBJ_DIR)/!' >$@

ifneq ($(MAKECMDGOALS),clean)
-include $(DEPENDS)
endif


$(BIN_DIR):
    mkdir -p $@
$(OBJ_DIR):
    mkdir -p $@

.PHONY: clean
clean:
    rm -rf $(BIN_DIR) $(OBJ_DIR)